Night of Champions Review

Night of Champions was last night and, considering the last two PPVs have been really good, will it get to that same level? Let’s take a look.

The WWE Tag Team Championship was on the line first as Air Boom were challenged by The Miz and R-Truth. I’m a big fan of The Miz’s theme music but it’s very funny seeing him and R-Truth do their duet telling the Buffalo fans that they suck. The match was good but the referee Rod Zapata made 3 questionable decisions that annoyed Truth and Miz. The first was when the he was distracted by Truth missing the fact that Bourne didn’t get tagged in by Kingston. The second and third was when Zapata missed Miz tagging in Truth and while he was arguing with Truth, Miz hit the Skull Crushing Finale on Bourne and the referee didn’t get to make the count for a good 10-15 seconds, by that time Bourne had recovered and kicked out. At that point Miz spat the dummy (Scottish way of saying that he lost his temper) and shoved the referee, getting disqualified and giving Air Boom the win. Truth and Miz didn’t take that decision by Zapata very well and continued to assault him then went on ranting about a conspiracy against them. On the basis of the referee’s decisions, they kinda have a point.

Predictions: 1 for 1 (good start!)

The Intercontinental Championship was on the line as Ted DiBiase challenged the wrestler formerly known as “Dashing” Cody Rhodes. DiBiase throughout the match kept on attacking Rhodes’ mask. The end was when DiBiase took the mask off and tried to hit Rhodes. However, Rhodes countered it into a roll up for the win. Lawler was saying that Rhodes had a handful of tights, but it didn’t look like it and hey, what’s wrong with the bad guys winning clean occasionally?

Predictions: 2 for 2

Before the next match, Christian came out to demand a match against the winner of the World Heavyweight Championship. Christian, face it, you’re out of the title picture for now. Move on. Sheamus came out and struck a deal in that if Christian gets his match and wins, he will be the first challenger. Christian agrees and Sheamus proceeds to brogue kick his head off. I don’t know about you but I guess the deal’s off.

The next match is a fatal 4-way match between US Champion Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, John Morrison and Alex Riley. Riley tried to do a crossbody on Ziggler, which turned out to be a bad idea as Ziggler stepped out of the way and Riley hit the steel steps. The rivalry between Ziggler and Swagger flared up for a while, then Vickie helped out Swagger by putting his foot on the ropes after he got hit by Riley. There was a really good bit near the end where Ziggler had Morrison in a sleeper hold and Swagger had Riley in the Ankle Lock. I thought that it would have been interesting if they both tapped out at the same time, making Ziggler and Swagger co-champions. The ending had Swagger powerbombing Morrison, and Ziggler, who must have reading Edge’s manual on how to be the ultimate opportunist, pushes Swagger out of the way and pins Morrison to get the win.

Predictions: 2 for 3

Next was Randy Orton defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Mark Henry.  Orton had a strategy at the beginning of frustrating Henry and slowing him down. Henry managed to start to get the upper hand when he stretched Orton’s body round the ring post. Henry was quite dominant throughout the match, which started to make me think that Orton would probably pull a RKO out of nowhere and win it. Orton kicked out of the World’s Strongest Slam and then a bit later on tried to hit a RKO but Henry pushed him off, hit him again with the World’s Strongest Slam and got the win. Wow! I know that I have predicted that Henry would lose in his PPV matches and it’s nothing against him, I just thought that it was going to be another failed push. However, I’m so happy that Mark Henry is now the World Heavyweight Champion. It’s a shame that due to the fact he’s now 40 years old, he might not be the champion again. I hope that he has a bit of a run with it. With the exception of the Undertaker, wrestlers that are over 300lbs and look physically dominating in the WWE either don’t become champion or rarely do. Regardless of whether I enjoyed a match or not, if I got the prediction wrong, I would be a bit gutted. Not this time. It might be because I’m not really an Orton fan but I’m happy I got this wrong. So once again, congratulations to Mark Henry on becoming the World Heavyweight Champion for the first time.

Predictions: 2 for 4

Next up was the Divas Championship with Beth Phoenix in her home town of Buffalo hoping for second time lucky by beating Kelly Kelly. Beth Phoenix seems to bring out the best in Kelly Kelly and it was a decent match. There was a good bit where Natalya pulled Beth out of the ring to help her recover. Eve attacks Natalya and Beth grabs Eve’s hair and slams her to the floor. The ending had Kelly Kelly winning by reversing a powerbomb into a sunset flip. Normally, that would be fine. However, the fact that a) she did a similar move to beat Beth at Summerslam and b) Cody Rhodes won with a roll up over an hour earlier did annoy me slightly. A lot of people were thinking that Beth would win this but she didn’t so it could do in a couple of different ways. Either Beth will go for third time’s the charm and possibly go the way that the Orton/Christian feud went earlier this year; or maybe Natalya will get a chance basically saying to Beth “if you can’t beat Kelly, then I will!” The fact remains that if the Legion Divas of Doom want to save the Divas division; their plan’s going to fail at the first hurdle if they can’t defeat the fucking Divas Champion.

Predictions: 2 for 5

The final title to be defended was the WWE Championship, John Cena (yet again!) challenging Alberto Del Rio. Del Rio walked out to the ring with Ricardo Rodriguez announcing him as usual. Wait; hang on, what’s wrong with this picture? Isn’t Del Rio supposed to come out in a luxury car? Well, he would have if Cena haven’t stolen it and drove it in himself. Ok, then, that’s more heel behaviour but you’re Cena, you can do what you want. This match was pretty good and then Del Rio had Cena in the cross armbreaker. Normally, that would be great and thought that it was over but this is Super Cena we’re talking about here who never submits. Ever. It was pretty cool how Cena got out of it by basically lifting Del Rio up in the air into a modified powerbomb. Cena then put Del Rio in the STF and he tapped out, making Cena a 12-time champion at the age of 34. Ok, really?! Really?! Really?! What. The. FUCK?!?!?! It’s shit like this that the WWE Creative department pull that fuck a lot of people off! I’m going to stop for a second before I go on another rant like I did at Summerslam. Give me a minute...

...Ok, I’m back. As you can tell, I don’t think that (along with the fucking majority of wrestling fans) Cena should have won the WWE title. I’m not a big Cena fan and it’s because of shit like this. Due to the fact that the WWE are going to Mexico in a couple of weeks, it was generally thought that Del Rio would still be the champion then. Anyway, I could go on and on but I need to focus on the rest of the article so, congratulations to John Cena, the prick.

Predictions: 2 for 6

Now to the main event of the evening, CM Punk versus Triple H in a no-disqualification match, which seems ironic that the main event of Night of Champions is not a title match. This had an interesting beginning with Punk attacking HHH during his entrance. Punk, I know I’ve recently become a big fan of yours, but you can’t do that to my favourite wrestler. The match went in and out of the ring. Punk managed to elbow Triple H through the Spanish announcers table, and start to get the upper hand. This is where the match becomes a massive clusterfuck and a lot of shit happens, so read this carefully and try to keep up. The Miz and R-Truth come out and take out both Triple H and Punk, draping Punk’s body over Triple H. However, HHH kicks out and, understandably Miz and Truth get into it with the referee Scott Armstrong and beat the crap out of him. John Laurinatis comes out and Triple H and Punk temporarily join forces to get rid of Miz and Truth. Triple H hits the pedigree on Punk and when another referee comes out, Laurinatis gets him to tend to Armstrong instead of making the count. However, when Punk recovers and hits the GTS, Laurinatis gets the referee to make the count, in which R-Truth stops by pulling Punk off him. Yes, you read that right. R-Truth, who 2 minutes ago, tried to get Punk the win then does the complete fucking opposite. That makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Punk then kicks out of another pedigree. Laurinatis decides to stop tending to Armstrong and starts texting someone on his phone. Gee, I wonder who that could be? Yes, you guessed it; Kevin Nash comes in through the crowd and attacks both Triple H and Punk. Nash goes after Triple H again and gets hit by a sledgehammer to the head. Triple H then hits another pedigree on Punk and gets the win.

Predictions: 3 for 7

I was enjoying this PPV until the Divas match then it started to make no sense to me. Firstly, hometown gal Beth Phoenix loses another chance to become Divas Champion; Super Cena becomes a 12(!!) time World Champion, and the main event became more similar to TNA main event with the amount of interference that was going on.

After Money in the Bank and Summerslam, they have gone a massive step backwards with this one. There are only 2 weeks until Hell in a Cell in New Orelans, and the question has to be whether they can bring it back up to that level again.